System of person-earth
The man-land relationship is ancient but remains a relatively young research area within geography. As the connotations of this relationship have developed continuously in concert with human society, man-land characteristics tend to exhibit particular time stamps. Studies in this area have performed a basic scientific support role as a component of the development of geography and the formulation of major national development strategies ever since areal system theory for man-land relationships was proposed by Wu Chuanjun. The central status that this field occupies in geographical research has also been gradually strengthened over time. In the context of ever growing conflicts between man and nature and with the aim of furthering our understanding of man-land relationships, this series of papers aims to explore the theoretical foundation that underlies the dynamic evolution of this field based initially on areal system theory. The second aim of this work is to extract and understand evolutionary processes as well as dominant characteristics and mechanisms of change to further discuss feasible methods to coordinate human activities and benefit nature. It is generally the case that the foundation underlying the evolution of man-land relationships is the nature of the game between humans and nature within the development space. The evolution of this relationship within China has been accelerating markedly and a number of combinations are becoming ever clearer. Technological progress has also led to an increase in inputs and resource allocation while the first-generation contradiction characterized by the concept of "amount" in this context has disappeared. At the same time, a second-generation contradiction characterized by the concept of "quality" has also developed; typical characteristics in this case include the fact that food shortages are decreasing while other problems including soil degradation and water pollution caused by food production are intensifying. Although regional resources are no longer in short supply across China, problems such as ecological degeneration and environmental pollution caused by their allocation across multi-regions have increased. It is therefore necessary to enhance our comprehensive understanding of the evolution of man-land relationships as well as our own role in this system.
The evolution of man-land relationship is inheritable. Understanding the evolution process of man-land relationship and its mechanism from the historical perspective can help us to increase the comprehensive cognition about this relationship. According to the core connotation of man-land relationship, this paper points out that resources and environment factors are the chief interaction point between human and "land", and human are in the positive position in man-land relationship. Based on this, the paper focuses on the primary human-needs, the main human activities and their action intensity as well as the cognitive ability on "land" to unfold the evolution process, and then to generalize the evolution characteristics of man-land relationship in China, and further, to extract the dynamic factors. Findings suggest that: with human productivity level rising, the perception of human to "land" has experienced successively the following periods: Almost unconscious, Unity of man and land, Mutual matching of man and land, Superior man than land, Co-exist harmoniously man and land. Accordingly, the man-land relationship in China has gone through from the bud, to the singleness relationship centered on farmland, then to the disordered multielement relationships centered on farmland, freshwater, energy and mineral resources etc. till nowadays to well-organized multielement relationships chased by human again. Historically, the dynamic mechanism of the man-land relationship evolution in China is that, productivity is the most core motivation, which promoted the development of humans' ability to act on "land"; The population is the most active power, since the population demands, and the population size and together quality increasing, enhance the closeness between human and "land"; the production relationship mainly influences the evolution process of man-land relationship indirectly through influencing human's enthusiasm for production and resource ownership; both wars and natural disasters have promoted and hindered effects on the historical evolution process of man-land relationship in China. Taking history as a mirror, the study of man-land relationship cannot be divorced from its varying background, both theoretically and practically. Also, the formation of contradictory between human and "land" in modern China has its inevitability. The basis of long-term harmonies between human and "land" rests on promoting human's scientific cognition about "man -land relationship", and also adjusting human's behaviors under various local conditions. Besides, speeding up the technology development and upgrading the mode of production are also important approaches to relieving the present contradictions between human activities and multiple land elements.
Man-land relationship and man-land areal system is the core of theoretical research in geography, the methodology advances of which, can not only promote the further study on man-land relationship, but also effectively solve the comprehensive resource-environment issues during the economic and social development. Based on the extensive literature review on connotation and research progress of man-land relationship and man-land areal system, this paper summarizes various research methods on China's man-land relationship and man-land areal system from four aspects including philosophy and environmental history, sustainable development, research methods on man-land areal system, and integrated characterization methods on man-land relationship, and discusses the future development trend. (1) Along with the connotation evolution of man-land relationship and man-land areal system, its study methods have been developed, which enriches the theoretical connotation and methodological system of man-land relationship. (2) Different research methods on man-land areal system vary with their respective features, and each has its own applicability and limitations. Nevertheless, the synthetic research methods are the main development trend, such as ecological footprint and resources-environmental carrying capacity, which are the useful exploration of integrated study on man-land relationship. (3) The development trends of further research methodologies on man-land areal system include the integrated research methods coupling natural and human factors, the application of new technological means and new research methods, and the theoretical system of comprehensive research on natural endowment and resources and environment carrying capacity.
Compared with the increasingly obvious humanistic tendency in foreign human geography, China's human and economic geography still follows Academician Wu Chuanjun's theory, with human and economic geography as an interdisciplinary subject which is the study of the formation and evolution of the distribution pattern of human activities under the interaction of natural circle and human circle. And China's mainstream school on human and economic geography has been formed with studies on spatio-temporal rule of sustainable development on territories with different space scales, territories with important production and living, and territories with typical geospatial patterns as the main research points. "Territorial System of Human-environment Interaction", developed by Academician Wu Chuanjun, is the important theoretical foundation not only for human and economic geography, but also for the comprehensive research on geography. The essence of the theory, which includes territorial functional, system structured, orderly process for spatio-temporal variation, and the difference and controllability of human-environment interaction system effect, is entirely harmonious with the forefront of thought of the "Future Earth" studies program. In recent decade, with scientific mode of urbanization, major function oriented zoning, road map for the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, rural hollowing and targeted poverty alleviation, revitalization of Northeast China and transformation of resource-based cities, and administrative area optimization as the main research objects, theoretical methods have been developed in the aspects of important sustainable process of human and economic geography, territorial function formation and ordering rules for comprehensive geographical pattern, formation and evolution mechanism of urban agglomeration and its resources and environmental effects, sustainable life cycle and the revitalization of the path for problem areas, the interaction between geopolitics, geo-economy and regions, and effect of cultural boundaries on sustainable development. China's human and economic geography has made great progress in discipline development, and the application results have produced profound influences on the ecological civilization construction and sustainable development in recent years. With decades of hard work, China's human and economic geography has reached a world-class advanced level, so as to console the soul and spirit of Wu Chuanjun on the occasion of commemoration of the centenary of his birth.
The optimal control of the human-earth system plays the most important role in the theoretical foundation of human-earth areal system (abbreviated as the "human-earth system") advocated by Academician Wu Chuanjun. Based on the thinking and related discussion of optimal control of human-earth system proposed by Academician Wu, this paper deepened and expanded the theoretical and methodological aspects of structure, nonlinear effects, coupling relationship and evolution of the human-earth system. After that, we focused on the following two aspects. The first is to discuss the optimization of human-earth system and coordinated development of regional PRED (i.e., population, resources, environment, and development), including the relationship between human-earth system optimization and PRED coordinated development, as well as the objectives, key points, theoretical models and quantitative measures of coordinated development of PRED. The second is to explore the path and countermeasures of comprehensive regulation of human-earth system in the new era. First of all, we should promote the continuous and healthy development of human-earth systems through innovation. Secondly, we should optimize the spatial pattern of the human-earth system according to the main function-oriented zoning. Thirdly, we should build a modern economic system through supply-side structural reforms. Fourthly, setting long-term balanced development of population as a goal, we should gradually improve the population policy. Finally, we should follow the market principles to improve the mechanism of paid use of resources and environment and ecological compensation.
Ecosystem services bridge the natural environment and human well-being, and are the key content of coupled human-environment system research. This article puts forward a framework of research on ecosystem services for coupled human-environment systems, and systematically reviews the research hotspots of ecosystem services evaluation, ecosystem services trade-offs, ecosystem services driving factors, ecosystem supply-flow-demand, and identifies the key areas for future ecosystem services research. This article argues that: (1) international research on ecosystem services models have experienced a rapid development, and SAORES model is the outstanding representative of ecosystem service evaluation model in China; (2) ecosystem service trade-off analyses are relatively complex, and its mechanism depends on distinguish the relationships among ecosystem structure-process-function-service at multiple spatial and temporal scales; (3) natural factors are the basis of ecosystem services distribution, land use change can modify ecosystem structure, function, and services, and social and economic factors can lead to differences in ecosystem services trade-off and demand; (4) in order to clarify the coupling relationship between ecosystem service supply and demand, it is urgently needed to further identify the pathes of ecosystem service flowes; (5) future research of ecosystem services should include strengthening the analyses on the response of ecosystem services to global change, ecosystem services supply and demand flow focusing on the sustainable development aspect, integration and optimization of the dynamic evaluation of ecosystem services, the coupling of ecosystem services and human-environment systems, and the integration of ecosystem services and big data.
As a typical complex system, man-land system is known as a coupled human and natural system. The complexity of man-land system can be divided into three critical dimensions - temporal complexity, spatial complexity and decision-making complexity. In modeling complex systems, traditional models are deficient in displaying data in multiple dimensions, and thus require additional research. Recent studies suggest that the agent-based models (ABM) would provide insights on exploratory analysis and serve as one of the key tools for complex system studies. In contrast to traditional models, ABM pays more attention to the study of 'people', focusing on assessing the influence of human activities on the environment, and can reflect it in a spatially explicit way. The models usually contain three parts: (1) environmental layer, which is composed of natural/social attribute such as terrain slope, land price and traffic condition; (2) agent layer, consisting of one or more agent types with specific attributes; (3) behavior rule, standardizing the mutual consultation and decision-making mode of agents. ABM adopts a 'bottom-up' approach by applying the relevant actors and decisions at the micro-level to producing an observable macro-phenomenon, and displaying high complexity values in three dimensions. Currently, ABM approaches are widely used to model human-environment interactions in various fields, including transportation, financial markets and tourism management. After the basic principles of agent-based simulation are briefly introduced, this paper reviews the application of ABM in ecological process, ecological resource management and land use/cover change. However, as a new method, ABM is still at an exploratory stage, faced by issues including replication potential, empirical parameterization and model validation, individual decision making, and integration with other models. Although there are many challenges, the recent developments reflect an encouraging trend towards developing a new methodology for dynamic spatial modeling of human-environment interactions. The outlook of ABM is promising.
Man-land relationship research, as the core of geographical research, runs through each development stage of Geography. Based on extensive literature review, this paper systematically generalizes the connotations, research development and contents of man-land relationship in China. (1) It explores the connotations and evolvement rules of man-land relationship in different social development stages in China, and finds that the core role of man-land relationship in geographical research has been strengthened continuously. Changing with times, its connotations have been considerably enriched by sustainable development and other notions, and so does its theoretical system. (2) It applies the bibliometric method to sketch out the basic research status of man-land relationship in China. Specifically, it quantitatively identifies the funding sources, major research teams and journals for publication. It finds that the funding sources show a diversification trend with national funding being the primary source of research grants. The most competitive research teams are mainly concentrated in the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and normal universities. Journals sponsored by the Geographical Society of China are most influential in publishing man-land relationship research. (3) As resources and environment are the fundamental carriers of man-land relationship, this study focuses further on the research on resource-environmental base of man-land relationship, and finds that the resource-environmental base research in China has gone through an evolution process from single factor perspective research to comprehensive multiple perspective research gradually. Research themes have also experienced similar changes from land, water, energy minerals or other single factor research to comprehensive factor research of resources and environment. Empirical studies on national and regional development strategies are the feature of man-land relationship in China. More emphasis should be put on considering and following the changes in features of "man" and "land" and research on the impacts of new factors on man-land relationship in a developing and dynamic manner in the future. Particularly, we should pay more attention to research on the impacts of spatio-temporal changes in resource-environment absolute location on modes of man-land interaction, and to strengthening interdisciplinary research and systematic research on comprehensive integrated techniques so as to advance the development of application of man-land relationship theories and practices.
Understanding human-land relationships is essential for optimizing human activities in order to achieve local and global sustainability. China’s rapid urbanization is attracting much global attention; however, one of the challenges to achieve sustainable urbanization in China is to determine appropriate development mechanisms related to human-land relationships. As one of the typical industrial bases in China, the Tiexi District in Shenyang suffered from serious decline but now is shifting its industrial structure from heavy industries to tertiary ones, along with essential improvement of natural ecosystems and re-structuring of land use. Using Tiexi District as a case study, this article investigates the evolution of the human-land relationships in the context of urban spatial restructuring based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of temporal and spatial elements. Following the literature review, a database was built, based on interpretations of aerial photographs of Tiexi in 2000 and of the Quickbird Images in 2005 and 2010, combined with a survey on existing buildings. Subsequently, GIS was employed to identify the evolution of both characteristics and driving forces of the human-land relationship changes at both micro and meso scales. The new economic and technical development zone provided opportunities and resources for enterprise redevelopment, especially related to four strategies: entire-move-out, partial-move-out, bankruptcy and redevelopment on original site. Structures and functions have changed markedly during 2000 to 2010. For example, industrial land use was reduced from 1 486 hm2 in 2000 to 842 hm2 in 2010 while residential land use increased from 1 077 hm2 in 2000 to 1 452 hm2 in 2010; commercial and service industries land increased from 59 hm2 in 2000 to 110 hm2 in 2010; and land use for public facilities, transport and roads and welfare remained almost the same level compared to that in 2000 and 2010. In addition, the per-capita living space of the residents has grown from 6.0 m2 in 2000 to 28.6 m2 in 2010; and, per-capita green land jumped to 4.15 m2 which was an increase of 39% compared to 2000. Finally, a total of 5206 buildings were investigated by a field-survey, and information was obtained for 3 702 of them regarding the year they were built, and of the land occupied, which was about 1 102 hm2. The results show that the land area covered by the buildings built during 2000-2010, 1980-1999 and 1949-1980 is about 743 hm2, 304 hm2 and 63 hm2, respectively. Since 2000 the land use distribution has shifted from a “South-North Pattern” to an “East-West Pattern” which confirms that the external resources and policy tools have had serious affects on the evolution of regional human-land development. Finally, government, public and private firms were identified as the 3 main agents and investigated their roles and interactions.
China has experienced fast urbanization for more than three decades and now it is the key time to promote the quality of urbanization through accommodating rural migrants in urban destinations orderly and properly. The entrepreneurship of rural migrants in urban destinations could increase their incomes and provide more opportunities for interaction and communication with local residents and therefore is considered as an efficient means to enhance social integration of the migrants. However, in domestic scientific community, existing studies mainly focus on the entrepreneurship of rural migrants in rural origins while in international debates, too much emphasis is placed on the entrepreneurial behavior of immigrants and ethnic groups. Studies focusing on the entrepreneurship of rural migrants in urban destinations and its determinants are rather limited. This paper therefore first proposes a theoretic model of entrepreneurial behavior of rural migrants in urban destinations through the perspective of 'human-environment relationship' and then takes Jiangsu province as an empirical case to demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of the theoretic model. Based on the '2010 Migrant Survey in Jiangsu province', this paper employs binary logistic model to investigate the determinants of entrepreneurial behaviors of rural migrants in urban destinations. This paper has several findings. Firstly, both the social-economic features of rural migrants and the social, cultural and urban environments are observed to have influences on the entrepreneurial behaviors of rural migrants in urban destinations. Secondly, the urban factors, such as urban labor market and urban economic structure, exert more profound influences on the entrepreneurial behaviors of migrants than the difference in cultural and societal contexts of original places, which are in contrast to the findings of existing studies on the entrepreneurship of immigrants and ethnic groups in destinations. Thirdly, this paper finds that the special institutional schemes of China also have significant influences on the entrepreneurial behaviors of rural migrants, particularly the hukou arrangement tends to reduce the possibilities of the entrepreneurship of rural migrants in urban destinations.
Theory of vulnerability is a tool to analyze interactions and mechanisms of human-land relationships and provides a new perspective on sustainability evaluation research. Here,we took the Han Dynasty Chang’an large relic area as an example and based on the concept of vulnerability evaluated the vulnerability of the human-land system using Fuzzy AHP and spatial analysis technology. The results show that the degree of vulnerability of the relic area is generally low：the low degree vulnerability area is concentrated and the high degree area is scattered along the edge of the relic area. The degree of society vulnerability is generally high：the high degree vulnerability area is concentrated,and society vulnerability in the northwest area is high and low in the southeast. In the large relic area,a weak degree vulnerability area in the whole area accounts for 27.2%,low degree vulnerability area accounts for 23.8%,moderate degree vulnerability area accounts for 27.9%,high degree vulnerability area accounts for 11.7%,and extreme degree vulnerability area accounts for 9.4%. The spatial distribution pattern of the vulnerability shows that the degree of human-land system in the north and west area is high,while in the south and east is low. The impact and stress of urbanization is the fundamental cause of vulnerability of the human- land system;residents’ rational choice is the internal agent of vulnerability of the human-land system;the externalities coming from protection policy to a certain extent affect the vulnerability of society.
Based on the natural background of land bearing capacity difference in the lithology and landform areas, we put forward that in different lithology and landform in the hinterland of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, because the land bearing capacity is different, then, the interactions, the response and feedback between people and land are different also, further, there is the difference of number and the spatial distribution pattern of settlements from the view of man-land relationship, and showing different process and intensity of ecological degradation, such as soil erosion and so on, so that the diversity and different adaptability of man-land relationship are formed in different lithology and landform areas of Three Gorges Reservoir Area. The coupling relationship between sloping cultivated lands and the settlement is an important factor influencing the suitability of man-land relationship. We took the settlement on behalf of the "people", the sloping cultivated lands and soil erosion on behalf of the "ground" (environment), and chose the 27 towns of Fengjie County located in the center region of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area as the study case, revealed the allocation relationships of between settlements and sloping cultivated lands and the difference of coupled mode between settlements and sloping cultivated lands on different lithology, and made type division of the man-nature of study area applying grid unit analysis technology to divide 1 km x 1 km grid as the research unit. The results showed that: a) The spatial distribution of settlements and sloping cultivated lands presented strong space convergence, the high proportion and the higher patch’s grade of settlements and sloping cultivated lands distribute mainly at the Meixi river valley in the north and the Yangtze river valley in the middle, the low area of them distribute mainly at exposed limestone area of the southern study area. b) Of all the coupling relationship types of sloping cultivated lands and settlements, the type of more sloping cultivated lands distributed mainly at exposed sandstone region and the type of less sloping cultivated lands distributed mainly at exposed limestone region, and the type of which settlements and sloping cultivated lands keep balance present random distribution pattern. c) The reasons of the sloping cultivated lands abound in study area were attributed to the large number of sloping cultivated lands and the difficult to shift from agricultural use. The soil erosion of the coupling type of more sloping cultivated lands is more serious than other coupling type because of the distribution of more sloping cultivated lands. d) The man-land relationship of the 27 towns are divided into four types such as the salient type of contradiction, the less salient type of contradiction, the less assuasive type of contradiction, the assuasive type of contradiction, and the area with less salient region of contradiction between human and land accounted for the largest, therefore, there is facing the dual problems of the cultivated land from grain to green and cultivated land pressure. On the one hand, this research results verify the effectiveness of the theoretical assumptions proposed by this paper and can provides the theory basis for the sloping cultivated lands utilization and the implementation to coordinate man-land relationship in the hinterland of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, on the other hand, it is also a beneficial attempt and supplement for the study on the regional man-nature relationship.
：In view of the current situation that the theory study on tourism geography is relatively weak and the content relatively generalized, this paper proposes that tourism human-environment interactions should be the core of tourism geography study. It expounds the theoretical connotation of tourism human-environment interactions , and then by taking "tourism areal system" as the object of study, it defines that tourism geography is a science that studies the relationship between human tourism activities on earth surface and its geographical environment and serves man's life and social economic development. On the basis of theories related with human-environment interactions, in accordance with the requirement of developing tourism geography theory systematically and scientifically and fully considering the discipline features of tourism geography, i.e., tourism, regionality, comprehensiveness and applicability, the paper constructs the tourism geography theory framework by using tourism activity system and geographical environment system as baselines and human-environment interactions theory as the core, and by integrating theories of related disciplines. The paper also reviews the basic research content, main scientific issues and principal research methods of tourism geography, and emphasizes that the scientific spirit of geographic study should be highly promoted, and the unfavorable current research status of the low-level application orientation and the too much technique orientation should be changed. Thereby, tourism geography should be really applied to dealing with the national and regional practical tourism issues, and the theory-oriented ideological study should be intensified. Therefore, such points as the basic features, functional structure, spatial-temporal evolution, fundamental law, dynamic mechanism and regulation means, that profoundly reveal the criteria of the tourism human-environment areal system, should be the focuses of tourism geography study. On these grounds, by means of innovations in the scopes of discipline characteristics, research methods, theoretical results, research methods and application value, the paper deepens the theoretical study, advances the academic level, improves the discipline system of tourism geography and promotes the localization of modern tourism geography and the internationalization of China's tourism geographical study.
Yi Ching describes all nature and human endeavor in terms of the interaction of “Yin(阴) and Yang(阳)”. This research reveals that it is achievable to apply Yin -yang model to interpret the relationship between human and nature. Firstly, Yin -yang of Yi Ching (易经) is dichotomy idea the relationship between the center "human" and "earth" of each other or not of each other, so the theory of Sustainable Development essentially is a stratigic goals which integrated with humanic values of human-centered, rather than the present stage or the highest form of Human-earth relationship. Accordingly, two centers of "human" and "earth" in Human-earth Areal System assumption means it correspond to the “yes or no” each other and the process of “一”(1) evolution to “二” (2)(一生二, from one system to two center systems). However, the relationship of “human” and “earth” not only dichotomy, but also shift and taking turns, which is another level of Yin -yang namely “二”(2) evolution to “三”(3) (二生三,from two center systems to third or three new systems), that is the evolution of Human-earth Areal System. Therefore the research built the model to describe that, and make it more clear through the projection of “Liuhe” (六合, six two dimensional plane: up, down, front, back, left, right), then got the evolution track of Human-earth Areal System, Yin-yang in one line of human-earth, the evolution track of distance between human and earth, and complex system nonlinear dynamics and chaos in the Human-earth Areal System. From that this research have shown it is effective method that use Yin and Yang of Yi Ching to explain the Human-earth relationship and build the Human-earth Areal System model, in order to explore the space rule in area of Human-earth relationship and the trail of Human-earth Areal System. Even more, maybe the Bagua(八卦图) is the best model. And, as China's geography research core, the Human-earth relationship idea should be continued, and be paid more attention Chinese traditional philosophy, methods and culture.
In combination with the author's review of frontier issues in human geography in recent years, this paper clarifies that uncovering the spatiotemporal difference rules of human-environment system interaction in the geographic pattern is the highest-level scientific puzzle in modern geography, and is the understanding of key issues which could decide the prospect of future geography. Four practical methods including "process induction, regional comparison, qualitative analysis, logical judgment" until now for integrated human-environment system researches are proposed. Aiming at four frontier fields including regional equilibrium, resources and environment carrying capacity, territorial function, and spatial structure, academic ideas including the driving forces of regional development pattern changes, the impact carrier of natural sphere on human activity sphere, the rules and methods for integrated geographic zoning, and the changing laws of "living-production-ecology" spatial structure, are discussed. Finally, this paper discusses the significance and key issues of regional sustainable development in the framework of "Future Earth", and presents that the integrated method system and basic theoretical system of comprehensive research in complexity science based on "integration of both natural and social sciences" and "interpenetration of both basic researches and decision-making application", will profoundly influence research progress of the process and framework of human-environment system.
The paper built a dynamic simulation model of human-natural evolution by using dynamic model to have an empirical study on the law of human-natural system in Gannan based on the human-natural relationship, which described the potential situation of the evolution of human-natural relationship in Gannan and provided a theoretical basis for coordinating the human-natural relationship to change direction to sustainable development. The results indicate that the human-natural relationship of Gannan was in the maladjusted state and the human-natural system presents an unsustainable evolutionary trend in the future,economic development can only be lasted about 35 years. From the evolvement of the human-natural relation, according to the conditions of Gannan area, some ideas of optimizing the human-natural relationship are put forward. Accelerating the transformation of economic development is the inevitable choice to coordinate the Gannan’s human-natural relationship to move towards the sustainable development, reduce the dependence of economic growth on natural resources and the pressures on the environment can effectively delay the speed of exhaustion of resources, which has the positive impetus function to the human-natural system moving towards the sustainable development. Speeding up technical progress and increased environmental protection investment has a significant role to the coordination of the Gannan’s human-natural relationship. Gannan’s efforts to develop the economy must be accompanied by equally vigorous efforts to control the population, and improve its quality, which ultimately to coordinate the human-natural relationship of Gannan.
System of person-earth
